Travel Grants

Call for Submissions: SANA Travel Grants: St. Clair Drake Travel Grant & Eleanor “Happy” Leacock Travel Grant 2021

St. Clair Drake Travel Grant

The Society for the Anthropology of North America announces the St. Clair Drake Travel Grant for travel to the 2021 AAA conference, titled “Truth and Responsibility” from November 17-21, in Baltimore, Maryland.

The committee will distribute up to four grants of $500 each.

To apply, submit your paper abstract, university affiliation, and contact information in the body of an email to sanatravelgrant@yahoo.com by September 30, 2021. Please indicate whether you are in an M.A. or Ph.D. program. No additional materials are needed.

Applicants must be SANA members. The membership fee is only $10 for students.

  • The student travel grant is awarded on a competitive basis and reviewed by a committee comprised of members from the SANA board. This travel grant is intended for currently enrolled graduate students without a PhD. Only students who are presenting papers at the conference will be considered for the grant.
  • A total of 4 awards will be made: 2 awards will be given to Ph.D. students; 2 awards will be given to M.A. students.
  • Papers should relate to the study of North America and – in keeping with the work of the grant’s namesake, St. Clair Drake– preferably consider the politics of everyday life in North America such as those pertaining to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and/or sexuality. Priority will be given to those that address Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
  • Preference will go to those students who have previously applied for the SANA travel grant and have not yet received one.
  • The total dollar amount allocated to travel grants is limited; therefore, the number and dollar amount of grants awarded depends on the number of applicants and their travel needs.
  • Travel grants will not be awarded to any individual two years in a row.
  • SANA is an intentionally inclusive community of anthropologists and encourages every student to apply for the St. Clair Drake grant regardless of society’s labels or anthropology’s disciplinary boundaries. However, applicants must be SANA members presenting at the 2021 AAA meeting.

Eleanor “Happy” Leacock Travel Grant 2021

In 2013, SANA introduced a new prize, the Eleanor “Happy” Leacock Travel Award. Building on SANA’s history of support for those whose work and/or identities places them outside the disciplinary mainstream, this prize provides support for conference travel for the rapidly increasing number of scholars who labor in positions outside the tenure-track system.

Eligible candidates for the award include independent scholars and contingent or community college faculty (details below).

To apply, submit your paper abstract, university affiliation, and contact information to sanatravelgrant@yahoo.com by September 30th, 2021. Please also include a brief summary – no more than 100 words – illustrating that your current employment is in accordance with the award’s guidelines (see below).

About the Eleanor “Happy” Leacock Travel Grant

This grant honors Eleanor “Happy” Leacock’s outstanding career as an independent scholar and her labor as a semi-employed faculty member prior to securing full-time employment at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. In 1972, she was appointed Professor and Chair of Anthropology at City University of New York’s City College, where she was instrumental in rebuilding the department. Leacock simultaneously assumed her position at CUNY’s Graduate Faculty, training and inspiring a new generation of activist anthropologists.

Submissions should relate to the study of North America and, in keeping with Leacock’s contributions to feminist, urban, and activist anthropology, address issues of inequality based on gender, race, class, ethnicity, and/or sexuality. The first recipients of the award were Pem Buck (Elizabethtown Community and Technical College) and Christopher Carrico (Independent Scholar), who attended the spring 2013 SANA meetings in Durham, NC. Independent Scholar, Leni M. Silverstein, received the Leacock Award for travel to the 2013 AAA meetings in Chicago.

Additional guidelines:

Applicants must work as Independent Scholars, as faculty at community colleges, and/or in a contingent capacity for a college or university. This includes part-time instructors, adjunct instructors, and full-time, non-tenure-track instructors.

This travel grant is awarded on a competitive basis and reviewed by a committee comprised of members from the SANA board. SANA is an intentionally inclusive community of anthropologists and encourages everyone eligible to apply for this grant regardless of society’s labels or anthropology’s disciplinary boundaries.

However, applicants must be SANA members presenting at the current year’s AAA conference, “Truth and Responsibility” in Baltimore, Maryland. Please find information about how to join here: https://sananet.org/about-sana/

Since the SANA St. Clair Drake Student Travel Grant funds currently enrolled graduate students, they are ineligible for this grant, even if they meet the qualifications.
Travel grants will not be awarded to any individual more than once.
Preference will be given to those who have applied in the past and have not yet received a Leacock Award.

Who was St. Clair Drake?

Margot D. Weiss has written a biography on the pioneering social anthropologist and activist. Read it here.